A wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty…

Was telling a friend recently about both these quotes…

 

And then, for one glorious, supreme moment, came “the flash.”

It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside–but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond–only a glimpse–and heard a note of unearthly music.

This moment came rarely–went swiftly, leaving her breathless with the inexpressible delight of it. She could never recall it–never summon it–never pretend it; but the wonder of it stayed with her for days. It never came twice with the same thing. Tonight the dark boughs against that far-off sky had given it. It had come with a high, wild note of the wind in the night, with a shadow wave over a ripe field, with a grey-bird lighting on her windowsill in a storm, with the singing of “Holy, holy, holy” in church, with a glimpse of the kitchen fire when she had come home on a dark, autumn night, with the spirit-like blue of ice palms on a twilit pane, with a felicitous new word when she was writing down a description of something. And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.

–L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

 

 

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning towards dynamite…A man may have lived all his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then–the glory–so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in this world can be measured by the quantity and number of his glories.

–John Steinbeck, East of Eden 

If I die in Raleigh at least I will die free…

Sitting inside my favorite local venue, literally the only one here (Jack the Sound Guy’s outside smoking). And they say there aren’t perks to this job!

(Actually, it’s a little bit creepy. Jack the Sound Guy’s nice, but it’s far too quiet in here. And it smells like bleach, rather than PBR. And it’s kinda cold. Dear bands…get here soon?)

Nation Novel Writing Month

I did NaNoWriMo last year.  Yes, it was awesome.  No, I will not let you read my novel. Ever. No matter who you are.  To be honest, I’m not sure I even kept it. (Quick check of My Documents confirms that yes, I deleted it).

I am…INCREDIBLY tempted to do it again.  I know that it’s crazy.  I know that I have approximately 700% less time this November than I did last November.  But it beckons me never the less.

So we’ll see.

(All this to say that if I end up deciding that NaNoWriMo will kill me…I s’pose I’ll end up doing NaBloPoMo. Hooray blog!)

Wrapped in springtime’s hand-me-downs…

So, um, forgive me for being a little behind here, but…WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO SUMMER?!?

I guess my summer was pretty consumed with tour–booking it, being on it, and then wallowing in self-pity over not being on it. And travel in general. I literally went to or drove through Charlotte every single week of June through mid-August.

But…October? Halfway through? Already? That just seems a bit excessive.

I have literally given my birthday–2 days from now–ZERO thought, other than half-hearted attempt to coerce a few friends to have a couple drinks (though, in all fairness, I did make birthday plans a couple months ago that have since been squashed, so it’s not entirely for lack of trying). Mostly, I’m just refusing to accept that it could already be late enough in the year for my birthday.

I think I’m mostly just sad about missing those great summer nights outside on the lake, or camping, or sitting on the hood of someone’s car, or beer’s on someone’s deck. I spent most of my summer nights sitting behind a merch table, bemoaning the two drink rule, watching my favorites be amazing, and being ready to move on to the next city. Even in the constant coming and going–maybe even because of it–I was more restless than usual.

There’s something about both fall and spring that make me restless. Probably the promise of starting over, the excitement of something new. I never realized how much I’ve counted on summer to be content and settled.

Tell them it’s really real…

The last couple weeks have been, truthfully, pretty shitty.  There’ve been some bright spots (read: The Head and The Heart show? Pretty sure that’s what heaven sounds/feels like), but overall it’s just been a shithole.  So in lieu of actually being original (God forbid), I give you the only words that I know.  Hello, anthem of my high school years. And college years.  And mid-twenties too, apparently.  Hell, let’s just go ahead and assume that this may very well be the anthem of my life. (If nothing else, it’s been the title of my blog for the past…7 years?)

 

What a beautiful piece of heartache
This has all turned out to be
And Lord knows we’ve learned the hard way
All about healthy apathy

I use these words pretty loosely
There’s so much more to life than words.

There is a me you would not recognize, dear
Call it the shadow of myself
And if the music starts before I get there,
Dance without me,
You dance so gracefully
I really think I’ll be ok.
They’ve taken their toll, these latter days

Nothing like sleeping on a bed of nails.
There’s nothing much here but our broken dreams.
Ahh, but baby, if all else fails,
Nothing is ever quite what it seems.
And I’m dying inside to leave you
With more than just cliches.

There is a me you would not recognize, dear.
Call it the shadow of myself.
And if the music starts before I get there,
Dance without me,
You dance so gracefully.
I really think I’ll be ok.
They’ve taken their toll, these latter days.

Tell them it’s real,
Tell them it’s really real.
I just don’t have much left to say.
They’ve taken their toll, these latter days.

Dealbreakers

Ok, Donald Miller. You told single, Christian women a couple months ago to make a list of things they want in a future husband. Because, you know, that’s what your fiancee did, so obviously that’s what everyone should do. Because you are now an expert on relationships/marriage. Cool. So anyway, I made my list. Ready?

1. He has to like food seasoned with lots of black pepper, lots of garlic, a little salt, and a little cayenne.

That’s it. That’s my dealbreaker. (The caveat being that he cook for himself if he doesn’t like the afore mentioned combination of spices. I can live with just cooking for me)

Oh, and a love for whiskey would be nice too.

Real life work conversation

Me: If one more person tosses their money at me, I’m gonna punch them
Boss: Make sure you call me over first!
Me: So you can watch?
Boss: What, you think I’m gonna stop you?!

If you get the choice to sit it out or dance…

Fact: I will never NOT giggle when I hear I Hope You Dance.

A tale of two hipsters…

“She wasn’t a hipster, but he was always a really big hipster and she had a huge crush on him…and then she came back the next summer and was super hipster. And they ended up being really good friends, she even thought he liked her…but it turned out he didn’t. But she’s happily married now! And I think he’s living in the woods, so I guess they’re both happy!”

Sometimes, when you’re me, your friend offers to work part of your shift tomorrow.  Partially because she’s great, but mostly because she needs the money.  Whatever, you don’t really care.  The condition on which she offered was that you actually be able to get some sleep AND get some shit done.  You know, like making an eye doctor appointment[1], because you’ve been wearing old, ugly glasses for the past 4+ weeks because you ran out of contacts and can’t find the newer, cuter glasses…but you have new (read: 6 month old) vision insurance, so the first battle is actually to FIND an eye doctor.  Or getting your car inspected–yes, the car whose inspection was due 3 weeks ago.  Or joining the Y (let’s not talk about the absurdity of insisting on joining the Y when you don’t actually have the time to JOIN the Y, let alone USE the Y once joined.  It’s absurd.  All of it.  Ever).  There are probably about 15 other things that you need to get done and haven’t been able to, because the only day you ever have any time available is Sunday, when absolutely nothing is open…but you can’t remember what they are**.  So they’ll go undone for another 17+ weeks.

HOWEVER.  On those times when you’re me, you’ll probably end up spending your suddenly free-to-do-whatever-you-want-because-you-don’t-have-to-go-to-work-in-the-morning-and-by-morning-you-mean-1pm night much like mine was spent: eating delightful pork tacos, drinking whiskey, smoking a pipe, and watching Felicity on Netflix.  Well, ok, you probably won’t do that.

You also probably won’t eventually move from doing that to reading through the archives of your new favorite blog while listening to The Head and The Heart on repeat (you probably will be super excited about seeing them on Thursday. I mean, if you’re actually seeing them on Thursday, of course).  For hours.  Until 3am, in fact.

At which point you realize that you’ll never wake up early enough tomorrow to actually get the whole to-do list done…which means you’re looking at another week (read: 17+ weeks) of a staggering list of errands/responsibilities/stupid grownup stuff that you just can’t ever seem to take care of.

SIGH.

**Laundry.  You just remembered that pretty much everything you own needs to be washed.  Because you moved in April.  When the weather was warm.  And you’re pretty sure that most of your cooler weather clothes may not have been washed before moving.  Or maybe they were, but they probably got un-clean in the whole moving/unpacking/total lack of unpacking process that’s still going on.  And now that the weather’s cooler, you have no clean clothes to wear.

[1] Dear eye doctors: if you can’t even be open during any hours in which I could call to MAKE an appointment, I have absolutely zero confidence that I will be able to actually work out a time with you to actually HAVE an appointment.